ABBOTSFORD — His goal started the comeback, but Carter Bancks also scored important points that didn’t show up on the scoreboard Saturday.

With the Abbotsford Heat looking for the third-year centre to make a much greater impact with the AHL club, he did so in the right fashion during a 4-1 victory over the Chicago Wolves. After Wolves centre Alex Mallet drilled Heat winger Tyler Ruegsegger into the sideboards with a thunderous and questionable second-period check, it was Bancks who gamely took on Mallet. And although he came out on the short end of the bout and absorbed more than a few punches to his swollen face, it was the kind of response coach Troy Ward lauded.

While Dustin Sylvester got the winning goal at 8:44 of the third period after Ben Walter fired the puck from the slot through a maze — and Sven Baertschi and Roman Horak followed to seal the deal — it was Bancks who did everything he could to help the Heat improve to 3-0-0-1 while the Wolves fell to 4-1-0-0.

“We got a great push from Carter,” said Ward. “This is two of the last three games that he’s answered the bell and for not being a big guy, he’t got a lot of heart and character. It’s an emotional lift for our team and I can’t explain it. Last night [Friday] I didn’t think we stood up for each other and we played a 200-foot game tonight.”

Bancks has never scored more than five goals in his first two Heat seasons, but knew exactly what he was doing to beat Eddie Lack after Zack Kassian had staked the Wolves to an early lead with his third goal in five games.

Lack left his crease to play a loose puck in the second period. Caught way out of his net, the Swede scurried back to the crease on the ensuing 2-on-1 but couldn’t collect himself in time as Bancks was able to slip a backhand home to make it 1-1 at 5:10.

“I thought our line had a good first period and I was lucky to get that goal because Adam [Estoclet] made a great play to me and I was fortunate to finish it and it just seem we built from that and played an outstanding second period,” Bancks said of outshooting the Wolves 15-5 in the middle frame. “We got pucks to the net and it just tuned into a great team effort.”

So was the obvious redness around his swollen left eye and cheek from the Mallet punches.

“That’s something that our team takes a lot of pride in — we’ve got lot of guys who will step up,” said Bancks. “When you see something like that, somebody taking liberty, you’ve got to let them know that’s not alright, especially in our building. Unfortunately, he kind of let me know a little bit more. But it was a good fight.”

“We’ve got off to a good start,” summed up Ward. “We got puck deeps tonight and got a lot of pucks back because we made their defence pivot and go and get pucks and I just thought we got our legs.”

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